Arts Medicine & Trauma

Inspiration for Arts Medicine for Healing&Resilience derives from Dr. Kaufman's own life experiences and her yearning to help ease the suffering of children and adults she has met in her thirty plus years experience as a child psychiatrist.

In response to a grieving child's wish to see her mother again, she wrote the story, Missing Mommy. The child has a magical dream and sees her mother again. When she awakens, she asks her grandmother if it really happened. The illustrations are by the amazing artist, Hadley Hutton (http://hadleyhutton.com).

Dr. Kaufman's poem, In Memory of the Future, on the Newton, Connecticut killings, was transformed into a youtube video performance powerfully rendered by Newark Arts High School students. The poem and the students' creative expression in voice, music, dance and art is a call to action to prevent violence.

Bird That Wants to Fly, beautifully illustrated by Olya Kalatsei (https://www.behance.net/olyakalatsei), isthe story of a traumatized bird who walks instead of flies. She meets a magical horse who takes the time to really listen, and in doing so helps the bird remember who she is and spread her wings again. The story was written at a Therapeutic Arts Alliance of Manhattan workshop and inspired the creation of the opera, The Bird That Wants to Fly by Michael Raphael. Trilogy: An Opera Company debuted the opera in January 2105. A recording of the opera produced by Roven Records and also a narration of the book by the actor, Danny Glover is available on Amazon and other venues. Trauma Informed Oregon featured Bird That Wants to Fly as a healing resource in their November newsletter. Books are being donated to domestic violence, day treatment mental health, family empowerment, and child welfare programs (http://www.traumainformedoregon.com).

These are just some of Dr. Kaufman's many creative contributions which were made to be of use for the healing of children and adults. Please be sure to review the story, opera and poetry and also the book chapters and presentations sections on the this website.

To learn more about Trilogy: An Opera Company and Kevin Maynor, renowned opera singer and Trilogy's artistic director, please click on the button below. See the links below to Dr. Kaufman's Creative Works (book chapters, presentations, story, inspiration for The Bird That Wants To Fly children's opera, and poetry.